


99 Problems

by Wiggins



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Body Dysphoria, Dissociation, Experimental Style, Mage Surana (Dragon Age), Major Original Character(s), Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Original Character-centric, References to Illness, Surana (Dragon Age) has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:13:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiggins/pseuds/Wiggins
Summary: ...the Blight is lower on the list than you might expect.Towards the end of her Harrowing, Neria Surana has an unusual conversation with a Desire Demon ["Spirit of Nostalgia, if you please."] and comes out of the discussion, not a bargain,nevera bargain, with significantly more memories than she started.ORAfter a brief battle with cancer, Ashley Jackson dies and wakes up amagical elf.





	1. I Woke Up Like This

**Author's Note:**

> Experimental, short chapters, may possibly have a shifting POV, may go wildly AU.

She comes to with a man sitting on the bed by her side. He is nearly vibrating with impatience. He is made of exaggerations: all long limbs and too-large nose for his thin face, big dark eyes that glisten in the dim room, too-wide mouth trembling at the corners. He lets out a soft exhalation when he sees her looking at him, a little ‘oh’ of relief and surprise.

“How was it? What was it like? Can you-”

She looks up at the ceiling instead of answering and lets his chatter fade into white noise.

Five things you can see: the ceiling is rough stone, the windows are tall and so thin you could barely stick an arm through, Jowan is at her side, the rest of the room appears to be empty, she’s still wearing the clothes she wore to her Harrowing. Four things you can touch: there is a scratchy wool blanket beneath her fingertips, she slips a hand beneath the blanket to touch the smoother cotton of her robe, the skin of her arm under her sleeve is smooth but oddly hairless, she feels out the callouses on her left hand with her right and shivers.

_Wrong, this is-_

Three things you can hear: Jowan is _still_ talking, there’s a soft murmur of voices outside the room, and her own breaths are coming fast in her ears. Two things you can smell: sweat and some sort of ointment, herbal and astringent but oddly soothing. One thing you can taste: she bites the inside of her cheek very carefully, just enough for a faint copper tang to coat her tongue.

“I don’t know how to describe it to you, Jowan,” she says mechanically.

How do you describe an epiphany?

When she was seven, she made the connection between the Tranquil and her fellow apprentices. She saw Shawsie, bright and cheerful Shawsie, helping out the youngest students one day and the next she saw the new Tranquil organizing the store room and realized that 'Tranquil' wasn’t a state of being, like being blonde or dark haired, being a human or an elf: Tranquil was something that was _done_ to a person. Shawsie was still there, but _Shawsie_ was _gone_.

When she was fifteen, her mother explained to her that her father, who loved her and would always love her, wasn’t her sperm donor, that her mother and father had separated briefly and her mother had had an affair and click _click_ **_click_** it all fell into place why she didn’t look like her sister and brother, why they treated her a little different, why there weren’t as many pictures of her growing up because they didn’t want to _remember_ -

Except she didn’t have a mother or a father, not ones she _remembered_ , because she was given to the Circle as soon as her magic manifested-

Except magic wasn’t _real_ -

Neria sat up, curling in on herself and pushing the heels of her hands against her closed eyes till she saw stars. She counted her breaths, in on a three count and out on a four count, until the wild patter of her pulse slowed. After a few minutes she lowered her hands to her lap and stared at them. Her fingers were long and thin, light in color because she so rarely saw the sun, but olivine in tone.

“That bad, huh?” Jowan says.

“ _Worse_ ,” Neria tells him, and she looks so wan and _lost_ that he cannot help but believe her.


	2. I Have One (1) Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and he's kind of an idiot.

When Jowan explains his plan, Neria spends five minutes staring at him.

Only three of those minutes are devoted to trying to figure out if she has any other, _better_ , friends.

Spoiler alert: she does not.

One minute is spent pondering that. Why _doesn’t_ she have more friends among the apprentices? She has always written it off as nothing in common, or not enough time to socialize outside studies, or – but she’s reexamining everything in light of/because of/she remembers/she is experienced/she has _become_ -

Looking at it now, with her new _perspective_ , she can see how isolated she has been. She can see that she has been isolated _deliberately_. It’s Jowan, hogging the one friend he’s managed to keep. She cannot fault him for that, he’s a few years older than her but between the two of them it’s always been clear who the real leader is. It’s Irving, doting on his favorite and singling her out for special training and _treatment_. She can _absolutely_ fault him for that, he should _know better_. It’s her _ears_ , and her eyes, and her _race_ -

The final minute is spent sliding in and out of reality. To Neria, it feels like suddenly everything is slowing down, and then things tilt, ever-so-slightly, and she is falling without moving. It’s like being in the Fade, except in the Fade everything around her is false and she’s the only real thing but right now _she’s not real_ , and she’s questioning everything around her. She stares at Jowan with her not-real-eyes and she breathes the questionably-real air and she thinks, for one solid minute, about all the things that not-real-her could do in this not-real-reality because, well, it’s not real, right? So there are no consequences?

Except that while _she_ certainly isn’t real, things around her _might_ be.

And if the things around her _are_ real, and she’s some sort of not-real _placeholder_ for real-Neria, then the consequences of not-real-Neria’s actions might fall on real-Neria and that’s just not fair, is it?

Was it?

Probably not, she decides. Which means she should do her best to act as real-Neria might.

For now.

“That is the second stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she says.

Jowan looks wounded. He’s very good at _suggesting_ a pout without _actually_ pouting.

“Lily sounds like-” _a moron_ “-a lovely girl, you should introduce us as soon as possible.”

Now he looks suspicious, but slightly hopeful.

“I need to go talk to Irving. Please don’t do anything irreversible while I’m gone.”

“Neria…” he bites his lip.

She takes his hand and looks him in the eye, offering honesty in the face of his genuine fear. “You’re an idiot, but you’re _my_ idiot, Jowan. I won’t let them make you Tranquil, not while there’s breath in my body and blood in my veins.”

He goes shockingly white at her words. “Bl-blood? Who said anything about _blood_?”

“I did. Just now,” she says, tightening her grip on his hand until her nails start digging into the skin. It goes white under the force and they both watch, her with detached fascination and him with steadily mounting fear, as the tiny crescent cuts slowly fill in again, vivid crimson against his fair skin. “Is there anything you want to tell me before I go? Anything incriminating, irreversible, or otherwise relevant? Or should I just start making guesses?”

“Neria, please-”

She holds up her fingers, the ones with bloody nails, and presses them to his lips, silencing him. “I told you, you’re _my_ idiot.”

When he smiles, there's more blood then teeth in it, but it's real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY, remember that time I got Irving and Gregoir confused? ME NEITHER.


	3. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Blood Magic?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you flee the Templar who is hunting you down~?

Neria is stuck firmly in her own head as she makes her way to Irving’s office. Her mind is rifling through two sets of memories in order to solve the current problem: Jowan is currently or has been dabbling in Blood Magic. This is bad because the Circle does not approve of Blood Magic, as it is dangerous (she’s a bit fuzzy on the danger, beyond the concern of possession). If it is confirmed that Jowan is a Bloo Mage, then he will be killed or made Tranquil.

Neria will not allow Jowan to be killed or made Tranquil. Full stop.

So, she needs to find a way to get Jowan away from the Circle before his illicit studies are discovered. She needs to go _with_ him because at this point he’s her single solid touchstone. This is unhealthy, she realizes, but the world is still sliding in and out of coherence around her and he’s the first thing she saw when she woke up. It makes a certain sort of sense. Jowan is, or was, the one friendly constant in Neria’s life before her Harrowing.

Her Harrowing…it has done something to her that it should not have. She is suspicious. She remembers things that have not happened, that cannot happen. Neria does not feel as though she has been possessed. There is no separate voice in her head telling her what to do or how to feel. She just feels…more? Neria remembers being someone _else_ , named Ashley. There is no Ashley in Neria’s head. Perhaps Neria _is_ Ashley? Or Ashley _was_ Neria?

The demon implied as much. But it was a demon, and those are not to be trusted.

Blood Mages consort with demons, or at least that is what she has been taught.

Perhaps she has been replaced by a demon.

Neria shoves these thoughts, unproductive and disheartening, aside.

Irving’s office has two doors, instead of just a doorway. It seems quite extravagant to Neria. Apprentices do not get doors, or privacy; it is a luxury they have not yet earned. That’s so wrong, that’s awful, because privacy is a basic human _right_ -

Neria is not human. She has never been human.

She reaches up and lightly runs the tips of her fingers along the top of her pointed ear.

“Sir? You-“

“Come in, child.”

She moves into the office on autopilot. She’s been here before, seen the decorations and the books, the intimidatingly large desk, and the collection of different staves housed along the back wall. She smiles at her mentor, and if it’s a trifle flat or forced, well, she _has_ recently been Harrowed, and it _was_ harrowing.

The conversation that follows is one part congratulations to two parts genial instruction and Neria takes it all with good grace. Her focus is on trying to determine if Irving can be useful in her self-appointed task. She turns her newfound _perspective_ on him, watches the way his body language changes, listens to the tenor of his voice, and she comes to a few interesting conclusions.

Irving _is_ genuinely fond of her; she can see it in the way his smile twitches up if she allows a little snark out. She _reminds_ him of someone, it’s there in the way he sits back a little and his eyes go far away when she tilts her head _just so_. This good will only goes so far, and as their conversation starts drawing to a natural end, she glances down – stalling for time, twisting her long fingers into loops, and she sees…

A letter, addressed to Irving – a seal she recognizes, and-

Orders, relating to an upcoming ceremony of Tranquility, half-completed, and-

Three books in varying states of decrepitude, with rusty red lettering, and-

Neria tilts her head and smiles.

“I know what kind of mage I want to be, sir. I want-“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it seems like I'm skipping some set-up, you're right! Also, as you may have spotted, this is WILDLY AU. There is no Duncan in Irving's office to recruit potential mage-Wardens because _this isn't where Duncan stopped_. Neria is going to become a Warden, but she's not THE Warden Duncan recruits.


End file.
